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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
This is why the East Timor crisis must be seen as a symptom of a civilian-military crisis in all Indonesia, and why its resolution will affect the nation's future. Kopassus thugs, identified as key organizers of the terror, have not been particularly bashful about their role. On the contrary, they have displayed severed heads on poles along roadsides, evoking memories of similar displays in 1965, when Suharto seized power, backed by the Special Forces, known later as Kopassus.
Kopassus' actions have stymied Jakarta and Washington as well. Words of restraint from President Clinton and the State Department have gone unheeded. Thursday Clinton was forced to suspend relations with Indonesia's military, though the announcement didn't spell out whether military training or arms sales would also be suspended. Whatever the United States does now, the embarrassing fact is that Prabowo and his thugs enjoyed powerful Pentagon backing, including special training and aid, as recently as last year.
This relationship dates from 1965, when Washington made little secret of its support for the Special Forces, though they played a major role in the killing of more than half a million Indonesians. The Pentagon continued secret aid to Kopassus despite explicit prohibitions by Congress -- in other words, there were secret supporters for Kopassus, and its policy of controlling populations by terror, in Washington as well as Jakarta.
At stake now is whether those in both capitals who seek establishment of an orderly civil society can design a policy to implement that desire. For the United States, this may require honest acknowledgment of past complicity to drive home the point that violence will be condoned no longer.
A high priority would be an embargo on military sales to Indonesia, for the United States is currently the largest supplier of arms to Indonesia.
It may also require recognizing that Indonesia's power structure is fragmenting, and openly limiting aid to those whose style of governing meets international norms. For example, if the United States and the International Monetary Fund withhold aid, they must take steps to ensure that the financial pain is felt by those responsible for the terror and not by the poor who survive on foreign-financed food subsidies.
Above all, it is time to abandon the fiction that East Timor is, or ever was, an integral part of Indonesia. The crisis must be resolved in a way that will strengthen the country's constructive forces.
The alternative, to let violence prevail in East Timor, will almost certainly strengthen the forces of violence elsewhere in the country. Washington faces an unpleasant choice -- but it is, in large part, a choice of its own making.
